Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus)

Species information

Videos and images

Threats

The Nassau grouper was historically an important commercially harvested fish throughout the region; indeed, it is the most important finfish in the Bahamas (6). The behaviour of massing in predictably located spawning aggregations has meant that these fish are easy targets, caught by hook and line, traps and spearguns (6). In the 1990s however, fisheries documented a worrying decline in the size of catches, and aggregations are no longer observed in Puerto Rico, Bermuda or the United States Virgin Islands (3).

Conservation

Following a massive lobbying effort by conservationists, the Nassau grouper has finally received some of the protection it requires if numbers are going to recover from past exploitation (3). Spawning sites are protected in the Cayman Islands and fishing is banned in Belize during the spawning season (1). Other countries in the area however, have been slow to introduce protection measures and extensive lobbying continues (1).